Once you hit affiliate on Twitch people can begin to subscribe (sub) to your channel. Having subs helps build your community and helps support you as a streamer. But how exactly do you get more subs on Twitch?

How to Get More Subscribers on Twitch

1. Create And Share A Goal.
2. Stand Out In The Crowd.
3. Provide VALUE.
4. Make People Laugh
5. Increase Player Enjoyment.
6. Be Positive.
7. Offer Retention Rewards.
8. Get Great Subscription Emotes.
9. Balance Your Crowd.
10. Offer Challenges.
11. Be Honest.
12. Get A Great Layout.
13. Go Social.
14. Make A Private Subscriber Webpage.
15. Be A Great Gamer.
16. Ask People to Subscribe
17. Create Subscriber Only Competitions/Rewards
18. Play Games With Your Subs

When you first start a Twitch stream, it can feel like you’re streaming to a ghost town. And seeing that subscriber count at zero does nothing to make you (or your wallet) feel good about it.  

Before you can get subscribers, you’ve got to be either a Twitch Affiliate or a Twitch Partner. It may seem harsh to get to this level, but Twitch assures us that it’s possible to do in as little as a week with the right plan. Take a look at the tips below in greater detail, and get your strategy on the road to winning.

Create And Share A Goal

A lot of new streamers shy away from creating and sharing a goal. I think that it’s a great idea to create and share a goal. Why? Because it’s human nature to want to help others. I’ve witnessed this time and again with new broadcasts.  

When a new streamer has a channel, and they set a goal, if they are close to the target, many people will feel compelled to help out by adding their vote into the mix. This is more true than you might think, especially if you keep your audience entertained.

The trick to setting goals is making them easily obtainable. And also having a ‘celebration’ when the goal is reached, but I’ll get into that in a moment. Making a simple and obtainable goal helps in a few ways.

It will first inspire you because an easily obtained goal will be a quick motivator to get you to the success you want. Let me give you an example.

Let’s say you have two subscribers or even no subscribers. Your first goal could be ten subscribers. That isn’t a goal that’s out of reach, and it’s only ten subs. But, if you make an initial goal of 100 subscribers, you might be waiting a while to hit that goal.

Now, why should you tell people about your goal? First, as I mentioned, let’s say you have 8/10 of the subscribers to meet your target. People will see that 10 is your goal and that you are 80% of the way to achieving that goal.

This does two things for you. It tells the viewer that there is value in your stream because you already have 8/10. Therefore, they will be more likely to add to the list.  

The second way which showing the goal and count helps you is that if you are almost at your goal, people will be more likely to become subscribers just to see you reach the goal. People inherently like to help each other; we are social beings. You can take advantage of this fact with your goal.

Another great way you can take advantage of goals is by offering some sort of bonus to existing subscribers if they help get you more subscribers. You can offer exclusive emotes or bonuses of some kind to your subscribers. Let me tell you how this has worked for me in a similar respect.

I had a guild that I ran in-game on the MMORPG World of Warcraft. I started with only a few members. But, I had some pretty cool giveaways for my existing members for each person they brought into the guild.

This worked like an absolute dream. My initial five members went out and recruited. They even set up recruiting runs they would go out on together, just to reap the rewards.

You can use this tactic to get your existing subscribers to work for you to get more subscribers. Set goals and offer rewards to those who help you achieve those goals. It creates a sort of family within the community you build, and before you know it, the community will grow itself.

Stand Out In The Crowd

One of the most important things to being an entertainer (yes, you are an entertainer if you have a Twitch stream) is to stand out. Be original. And be yourself. Remember, you are the only you.

There is no one else on Earth who is just like you. Take advantage of that. Try to come up with ways you can stand out and do something different from anyone else. I’ve got a great little exercise for you to help with this.

Take a piece of paper and go to your favorite top ten streamers channels. Write down two things each does that differentiates them from everyone else.

Next, take your list of items that your favorite streamers do to be different, and write down as many other things you can that you could do differently. What are none of your favorite broadcasters doing that you wish they did? Add these to your list.

Lastly, take all the items and highlight the ones you get excited to do on your channel.  

It may seem like a silly exercise, but it will get your creative juices flowing, and I bet you’ll come up with something exciting that you can do to be the one to stand out in the crowd.

Provide VALUE

Not only do you want to stand out in the crowd, as we’ve just looked at, but you should also look at how you are providing VALUE to your viewers. Subscribers aren’t going to want to spend their money on a subscription if you don’t give them anything for it. There are a number of ways you can provide value to people. Here are just a few of the things you can do to offer value:

• Teach People
• Enjoyment
• Cool Rewards

Teaching people cool tips, tricks, and game techniques can be a great way to earn the subscription fee. And make people not only happy about it but also have them tell their fellow gamers a well. This is a great strategy if the game you are streaming has a lot of strategy or technique involved.  

Those sorts of heavy strategy games get a lot of people searching for the answers. If you provide those answers, then you provide value. How many times have you done a search to get past a particular level or area in a game? I bet you’ve done more than a few searches for this sort of thing.

Give the answers, get subscribers. It’s really just that simple.

Of course, doing your best to ensure people enjoy the stream is providing value. People like to be happy. People like to feel needed and be a part of a community.

Give the people what they want. Do your best to make sure everyone has a positive and fun experience, and they’ll not only tell their friends, but they’ll also come back for more. Entertainment is at the core of gaming in the first place, right?

Another great technique for providing value is by offering exclusive emotes and things to your subscribers. Or gift subscription months or another form of reward for subscribers.

Make them feel like they are part of an elite group that gets your exclusive rewards, and they’re more likely to stick around. Cool rewards add value to the subscription above and beyond, just having a good time.

Make People Laugh

If there has ever been something that resonates with people, it’s laughter. Every person on Earth likes to laugh because it affects the pleasure centers of the human brain. You can use this to your advantage.  

Keeping things fun and light and throwing in the odd joke into the mix will help increase the overall happiness of your community. And this provides a form of value.

The world can be a tough place and so giving people a way to escape and relax can definitely help to earn their sub.

Increase Player Enjoyment

As I was just mentioning with laughter, keeping your subscribers is only going to happen if they enjoy themselves. There are a number of tactics that you can use to keep people having a good time. Free in-game tips and tricks are one way to do it.

You can help people out too if they seem bummed out for any reason. A lot of people turn to games and streaming subscriptions because they want to escape the hum-drum of day to day life.

Maybe someone had a crappy day at work. Or maybe they got into a fight with their girlfriend or boyfriend and need an emotional ‘time-out.’ Either way, engage with your viewers and try to spread happiness and laughter, and you’ll be increasing their enjoyment.

And when a gamer is having a good time, they’ll invite their friends to join in.

Be Positive

Speaking of staying positive, this is the number one way to ensure your viewers return and even bring more people into your circle. Never alienate anyone or talk down to anyone. Always lift people up with positive energy. This ensures they don’t get a negative impression of you or your channel.

Take everything with a grain of salt and stay happy; your viewers will notice and want to stick around.

Offer Retention Rewards

Keeping your subscribers is how you grow your subscription base. And the only way to stop it from dropping. Losing subscribers won’t help you grow your income either. So, it’s important to keep your existing subscribers around.  

A fantastic tactic to do this is to offer retention rewards. But, what are retention rewards? Let me explain.

Let’s say you have your stream and a number of subscribers. You can set a reward for those who stick around. You could offer exclusive emotes or other rewards to subscribers who have been loyal for three months, or maybe six months or even at the one year point.

If a subscriber is two months into your stream and questioning whether or not to stick around, it could be as simple as offering a really cool reward to keep them around. And this will keep you making money so it might be worth investing in some really cool rewards like exclusive emotes.

Get Great Subscription Emotes

Speaking of emotes, this is a great way to entice viewers to subscribe. When a gamer sees that you have some original and cool looking emote art, they’ll want to have it too. You can use this monkey-see, monkey-do desire to your advantage.

There are a number of ways to get some exciting emotes. If you are artistic, you can design them yourself with a number of graphics programs.  

If you aren’t so artsy, there are all kinds of artists out there who will make you awesome emotes for a small fee. You can take a look at freelance networks like Fiverr to find graphic artists who can make you the emotes.  

And for the small fee, it is an investment in your subscription income. Why? Because many gamers will subscribe to the emotes alone if they look cool and original. It offers a form of value to the subscription that many a viewer will find to be quite undeniable.

Balance Your Crowd

One thing that a lot of streamers make the mistake of is only engaging and welcoming their new subscribers and forgetting about their core audience. That’s why it is vital to remember to balance how much you engage with new subs versus older subscribers.

And I don’t mean their age; I’m referring to how long they have been subscribing to your stream.

A good rule to follow is the 50/50 rule. Spend half your time engaging with new followers, viewers, and subscribers. Spend the other half of your time engaging with your existing subscriber audience. This way, you won’t make anyone feel left out in the cold, but welcomed to your community.

Offer Challenges

Challenges are one of my favorite ways to grow and retain subscribers. You can wager new viewers and followers to do something cool in-game. If they pull it off, you can reward a gift subscription. When others see you do this, they will want to try the challenge themselves.  

The trick is to wager that if they lose, they pay for a subscription. Make it a friendly and fun challenge with a relative difficulty, and you’ll be surprised how many people want to take part.

You might gift a few subscriptions, but you’re also likely to gain several paid subscriptions. Remember, most people like to gamble, so a simple in-game wager betting a subscription is a great way to not only drive engagement but make it extra fun for the existing audience.

Be Honest

The worst thing you can do on camera is to appear to be fake. No one likes a ‘fake person.’ Always be honest and be yourself.

An important aspect of that honesty is to let people know what they are paying for when they purchase a subscription. Let them know that you pay a graphics designer to make your group cool emotes.

You don’t need to give them any numbers, but let them know you’re doing something with the money that will benefit them. Again, they don’t need to know how much. But, if a person feels that you aren’t just pocketing the money and they are getting value, they won’t hesitate to pay the price of the subscription.

Get A Great Layout

A really great way to get people to want to stick around or to subscribe is by having an appealing layout. This isn’t vital, but if the stream looks really cool, you are more likely to get and retain subscribers.  

It is the same reason why people like a good looking restaurant or nightclub. No one wants to go eat dinner in a dirty alley, and no one wants to watch an ugly stream. Not to say a great layout is necessary, but it sure helps keep things looking sharp and helps to draw others attention.

Go Social

Like any business, you definitely want to get more income and more subscribers is the way to do it. And like any business, you need to promote.

Use all the free social media exposure you can to drive traffic to your stream. You could make an Instagram account or have a Twitter account. Then use these free platforms to your advantage, advertising to people when you are going to go live.  

Try making some posts with screenshots and videos of exciting moments in the stream. You can join groups of gamers to help promote your stream too. With all the different social media platforms out there, it’s easy to get started promoting your stream.

Make a Private Subscriber Webpage

A great way to help people feel that a subscription is exclusive is by having a members-only website or webpage. You don’t need to go over the top, just a page with some cool information about the game you stream, pointing out how you differ and why people should subscribe is a great idea.

And over time, your website might just drive more traffic to your broadcasts than social media.

There are a number of ways to approach this, but having a private members-only website with tips, tricks, and offerings is a great way to drive the exclusivity of your subscription plan. This works very well for letting subscribers know about things like retention rewards, challenges, or contests that you set up to drive engagement.

Be A Great Gamer

There is one sure-fire way to gain subscribers. Be great at the game. If you’re one of the top gamers on the scoreboards for your particular game, people are going to come to watch. You’ll gain followers and subscribers simply by being good at the game.  

Being great at a game will likely take a lot of time and skill to get up to the level where you’re a leader, but always strive to be the best, and when you reach the higher tiers of a game, people are going to notice. If you’re really good, people will subscribe just to see you play.  

Ask People to Subscribe

Uhhhh is it just that easy? Well yes! Many, MANY people have free Amazon Prime subscriptions that they do not even use. Some of these people don’t even know that they have these subscriptions.

For this reason, it is crucial that you remind your viewers to subscribe if they have not done so already. People are more likely to subscribe when they are asked to do so.

How many times do you hear your favorite streamer reminding their viewers to follow and subscribe? It makes a difference and is something that you should do regularly while you stream.

Create Subscriber Only Competitions/Rewards

Creating events and giveaways for subs only is a great way to motivate people to sub to your channel. One of the best examples of this is Nickmercs. He is constantly doing competitions and giveaways for his subs.

If you want to win the prize or you want to compete, then you must be a sub to the channel. This will encourage people who want to partake in these special events to take the jump and subscribe to your channel.

Play Games With Your Subs

Playing with your subs is a great way to encourage people to subscribe to your channel. If you have a large channel, playing with your subs may be difficult as you don’t want to make people feel left out, but if you are just starting out then playing with your subs can be a great way to build your community.

Like I touched on earlier, building that community is key to gaining more subs. If you can get a few people to sub to your channel and become loyal supporters of your community then that can go a long way to building your stream because these people will in turn bring their friends over to your stream.

When you are just starting out having a few loyal supporters of your stream can benefit you immensely.

As always, if you have any questions or just want to hang with me, stop by my Twitch channel here and say what’s up!

Knowing these tips and tricks to grow and keeping subscribers is crucial to your streaming success. None of these techniques will work on their own without a lot of hard work, but combining these ideas into your overall plan will set you up for success.  

The best thing to do is to try out some different things and see what works best for you.